"There are great players but with love and respect, the real superstars are the players who have already given us two Premiership titles.

"They need to be playing but we also need to keep a happy squad and they need to know that they will be playing.

"Everybody who stays will know they will have a lot of chances to play, so in this manner I can keep high quality and very good young players not afraid to come to Chelsea.

"My objective is to win the Premiership. I don't want to dominate, to finish without defeat, to finish with record points or goals or conceded goals or consecutive victories.

"We are not looking for that now. We just want to win. I think this season the transfer market was sleeping for a while and now is in the period of waking up.

"But everybody is improving so we cannot say Chelsea will be stronger and the others won't be. I think everybody will be stronger and probably the quality of the Premiership is already high and has a chance to be even higher." One of the players that Mourinho is most intent on keeping is Gallas - but Chelsea have told him he must see out the final year of his contract whether he signs a new deal or not.

Gallas has made no secret of the fact that he wants to play in Italy and AC Milan have been courting him as he has just one year left on his current deal and has stalled on a new four-year extension worth #90,000 a week.

Gallas is set for more talks when he joins up with Chelsea's pre-season tour of America, but has been given an extended break with the rest of the squad flying out to Los Angeles today.

Mourinho said: "Gallas is a Chelsea player. He will be at Chelsea this season. At this moment I cannot tell you if he will be here with a one-year contract or with five years. I cannot tell you.

"But I think before the season starts, or when he comes back from his holiday, then we can tell you if William is staying with a year contract or five."

With Roman Abramovich's millions behind him, the Chelsea boss is in the luxurious position of not being forced into selling Gallas just because he only has 12 months left on his current deal.

Gallas has been at Chelsea for five years after joining from Marseille for #6million and Abramovich is prepared to let him walk away for nothing but get one more season out of him.

But Chelsea have put a #90,000-aweek deal on the table to make the Frenchman one of the club's top earners.